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SJIF Impact Factor: 3.967 Volume: 3 | Issue: 7 | July 2017
EPRA International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research (IJMR) ISSN (Online): 2455-3662
EXPLORING THE JOURNEY OF THE RAMAYANA ACROSS DIFFERENT CULTURES AND LANGUAGES: A CRITICAL STUDY OF A. K. RAMANUJAN’S THREE HUNDRED RAMAYANAS
ABSTRACT A. K. Ramanujan’s Three Hundred Rāmāya’ as: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translationis a ground-breaking, staggering literary essay, written for a 1 Oliva Roy conference, which depicts the journey of the Indian epic, 1 The Ramayana throughout the last 2500 years and Research Scholar, across different languages, cultures and geographical Department of Humanities and Social regions. Ramanujan, here speaks of the numerous versions of the epic, Ramayana that existed in the last Sciences 2500 years or even more. Although Valmiki’s Sanskrit NIT Durgapur, version of the epic is the most influential and oldest, there exist 22 versions of Rama’s story in the World. West Bengal, India. Ramayana has been translated into twenty-five languages, and the different versions of the epic contain a rich variety of tales. With every translation, the story of the epic underwent a change. Ramanujan’s essay is concerned with different varied and diverse tellings of the epic, Ramayana. Ramanujan has focused his attention on the five different versions or tellings of the epic, Ramayana and concludes his essay with the remark: ‘Now is there a common core to the Rama’s stories, except the most skeletal set of relations like that of Rama, his brother, his wife, and the antagonist Ravana who abducts her?’1(Ramanujan, 1991). This paper is an attempt to study the different 86elling of Rama’s story in different languages, cultures and different geographical regions, and explore the universality of the Indian Epic, in the light of Ramanujan’s essay, Three Hundred Rāmāya’as: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation.
KEYWORDS: Translation, Epic, Diverse, culture,
The Ramayana.
INTRODUCTION The legend of Rama has influenced every Indian. A. MacDonell rightly stated in the twelve- The enchanting story of Ramayana has become a volume work, Encyclopaedia of Religion and part of the collective unconsciousness of the people Ethics, that „Perhaps no work of World literature, of India. The eternal myth of Ramayana has made secular in origin, has ever produced so profound an its presence glaringly felt in every Indian influence on the life and thought of a people as the Household. Ramayana has made a profound impact Ramayana‟2 (Macdonell, 1916). Ramayana is the on every Indian‟s minds, and that‟s why, attempts most popular and beloved and most read epic not and efforts are continuously made to represent the only in India, but in the whole South-East Asia. legendary story of Ramayana in literature, theatre
www.eprajournals.com Volume: 3 | Issue: 7 | July 2017 86 EPRA International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research (IJMR) | ISSN (Online): 2455 -3662 | SJIF Impact Factor : 3.967 and various different forms of art. These efforts and A NOTE ON RAMANUJAN’S attempts have led to the creation of almost three THEORY OF TRANSLATION hundred versions of Ramayana. A K Ramanujan‟s A translator is „an artist on oath‟. He has a scholarly and intellectual essay, “Three Hundred double allegiance, indeed, several double Rāmāyaṇas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts allegiances. All to familiar with the rigors on Translation”, begins with the question: and pleasures of reading a text and those How many Ramayanas? Three hundred? of making another, caught between the Three thousand? At the end of some need to express himself and the need to Ramayanas, a question is sometimes represent another , moving between the asked: How many Ramayanas have there two halves of one brain, he has to use both been? And there are stories that answer the to get close to „the originals.‟ He has to let question. Here is one. poetry win without allowing scholarship to Ramanujan‟s essay was written for a lose. Then his very compromises may conference at University of Pittsburgh, on begin to express a certain fidelity, and Comparison of Civilizations. The essay sparked may suggest what he cannot convey3. and elicited much clamour, debates and (Ramanujan, 2011). controversies since its first appearance. The essay Besides being an impressive diasporic became the centre of controversy, in 2011, when poet, A. K Ramanujan is a noted translator too, Delhi University decided to remove the essay from who with the help of his expertise and masterful their History Syllabus. Here in this essay, artistry, has recreated the aura, grandeur and Ramanujan depicts the complex history and the pageantry of the ancient Indian texts. Ramanujan journey of the Indian epic Ramayana in the last translated a number of medieval Tamil and kannad 2500 years or more, across different races, cultures, Bhakti poetry, classical poetry, 19th century religions, geographical places, and different time folktales of South India and a number of Tamil, periods. In this essay, Ramanujan details the Telegu, Malayalam, Sanskrit and Kannad texts into changes, the Indian epic, Ramayana undergone English, which earned him universal acclamation each time; it was translated and rendered in as a great scholar. As a poet, primarily as a different languages and different places, in the last translator, Ramanujan realized and was well-aware 2500 years. In the last 2500 years, the Epic, of the responsibility and critical work of a Ramayana has been translated into a large number translator. Ramanujan „argued that ... a translator of regional languages, such as Tamil, Telegu, carries over a particular text from one culture into Assamese, Oriya, Bengali, Malayalam, Kannad etc. another, he has to translate the reader from the Even a significant number of Sanskrit versions of second culture into the first one‟. Ramanujan‟s the Epic also exist. With each rendition, the actual translated works bear this mark. He has tried to story of Ramayana got moulded to suit the regional move the entire text along with the target audience practices and traditions of the people. Ramanujan to the realm of another culture, and he thought that briefs these renditions in his essay. Although there this can be achieved only through the notes, exists more than three hundred versions of the introductions, comments and prefaces of the Ramayana, Ramanujan concentrates his attention translator. He stated in the preface to on the five important versions of the Ramayana, - Ananthamurthy‟s novel, Samskara, „A translator the original Sanskrit version, the Jain version, the hopes not only to translate a text, but hopes (against Tamil version, Kampan, the Thai Ramakhen and all odds) to translate a non-native reader into a the South Indian folk versions of the epic. native one. The Notes and Afterword in this book Ramanujan not just depicts the different 87elling of are part of that effort‟4 (Ananthamurthy, 1978). the Indian Epic, Ramayana, but, explores the According to Vinay Dharwadker, “In his published difference that exists between these 87elling and work Ramanujan reflected on translation most the original version of the Epic. In this paper, I am often in the context of poetry, and conceived of it going to analyse how these four versions, or in as a multidimensional process in which the Ramanujan‟s words, “telling” of the Ramayana, translator has to deal with his or her material, differ from the Sanskrit telling of Valmiki, and how means, resources and objectives at several levels each rendition has added something new to the simultaneously”. Dharwadker posits that, according Sanskrit version of the epic.The present paper is to Ramanujan, the work of a translator is: divided into the following sections: to render textual meanings and qualities Introduction,Objectives, Methodology, Literature „literally‟, to successfully transpose the Review, Ramanujan‟s Perspective on the different syntax, design, structure or form of the “telling” of the epic Ramayana,Controversy original from one language to another, and encircling Ramanujan‟s Three Hundred to achieve a communicative intersection Ramayanas, Conclusion. between the two sets of languages and discourses. At the same time, the translation has to attempt to strike a balance between the interests of the
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original author and those of the translator Three Thoughts on Translation” provides a new (or between faithful representation and perspective, a new outlook on thesecountless faithless appropriation), to fulfil the versions or “ 88 elling” of the Ramayana. multiple expectations of its imagined Ramanujan‟s essay is about the different 88elling readers, and to construct parallels between of Ramayana, it raises questions regarding the the two cultures and the two histories or adaptation of the Ramayana story to be retold in traditions that it brings together5. different languages. The age-old tale of Ramayana (Dharwadker, 1994). has been rechanted in myriad ways and using In order to meet the expectations of the different idioms, in the south-East Asia. target readers, Ramanujan always focused his Ramanujan‟s essay starts with one such version or attention on the most accurate, reliable and literal telling of Ramayana. The telling deals with the last translation of the source text. To achieve this, he stage of incarnated Rama‟s sojourn on this earth. advocated a rigorous and time-consuming process This particular telling or version of Rama‟s story of – reading, analysing, drafting, editing and makes it poignantly clear to Hanuman, Rama‟s furbishing, as he stated in the preface to the Poems trusty henchman, that “There have been as many of Love and War, „I began this book of translations Ramayanas as there are rings on this platter”. The fifteen years ago and thought several times that I story suggests that, “for every such Rama there is a had finished it . . . . I worked on the last drafts in a Ramayana”. In the last 2500 years, the enchanting third-floor office of the Department of English at story of Rama has been retold in a number of ways, Carleton College where I sat unsociably day after and in myriad forms, like – mask plays, puppet day agonizing over Tamil particles and English plays, shadows plays,TV-series, popular cinema prepositions‟. The most difficult stage in this and also the various literary forms, like – kavya, process of translation, as Ramanujan says, is the puranas, story etc. Ramanujan refers to these rendition of the style, structure, syntax and design various forms as “88elling”, not versions or of the source-text into the second language. For a variations of the Ramayana. His reason is “I have faithful and accurate rendition of the original text come to prefer the word 88elling to the usual terms or the source text, Ramanujan focused his attention versions or variants because the latter terms can on the different principles or aspects of poetry, like, and typically do imply that there is an invariant, an the definite order of elements, the use of images original Ur-text” (134). This assertion of and their placement, the use of words, the explicit Ramanujan suggests that in this country of diverse theme, use of space and punctuation, so on and so cultures and religions, Ramanujan doesn‟t prefer or forth. In his translated works, Ramanujan has privilege the Sanskrit version or Ur-text of the epic always tried to convey the specific order of as superior, and the other versions as inferior. He elements as was in the original text, shape his sees all the versions of the Epic as equally version properly just like the source text, arrange important and significant in representing the age- the poetic elements in just order, without any old legend of Rama. alteration or variation, and finally, he tried to make Ramanujan‟s essay focuses on “five „explicit typographical approximations to what [he] 88elling” of the Ramayana – Valmiki‟s Ramayana, thought was the inner form of the poem‟. the Jain version, the Tamil version, Kampan, the In the essay “Three Hundred Rāmāyaṇas: Five Thai Ramakhen and the South Indian folk versions Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation”, of the epic. After stating his literary aim or Ramanujan has not only elaborated his theory and objective of writing this scholarly essay, concept of Translation, but has also commented on Ramanujan turn to a comparative study of these the different aspects of „three hundred‟ translated five “88elling” of the Ramayana. Citing the story versions or, „tellings‟ of Ramayana. Let us now of Ahalya, the mythological woman who turns elaborate Ramanujan‟s perspective on these from virtuous to adulterous, which appears in both „tellings‟ of the Ramayana, in light of his theory of the Valmiki‟s Ramayana as well as in the Kamba translation. Iramavataram, Ramanujan critically analyses the RAMANUJAN’S PERSPECTIVE ON differences that exists in these two texts. By THE DIFFERENT “TELLINGS’ OF depicting the story of Ahalya that exists in both of THE EPIC RAMAYANA the 88elling of the Ramayana, Ramanujan has tried Ramayana is the most read Epic, not only to show the difference between story and discourse, in India, but also in several different parts of this to show how the meaning of a same story gets World. In India, the epic has made its way into the changed in different historical periods. The very Indian culture‟s blood-stream. For this reason, the first difference that comes to the notice of Epic has been translated and retold in a number of Ramanujan is the presence of motifs. In Kamba languages across South-East Asia. Tulsidas once Iramavataram, Ahalya, seduced by Indra, realizes rightly said – “Ramakatha kai miti jaga nahi”, that she is committing a sin, but instead of meaning – “It is impossible to keep count of the repenting, she enjoys the sinful act. Then Indra tries ramakathas in this world”. Ramanujan‟s essay to escape “in the shape of a cat, clearly a folklore “Three Hundred Rāmāyaṇas: Five Examples and motif”. Later on, both of them receive just
www.eprajournals.com Volume: 3 | Issue: 7 | July 2017 88 EPRA International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research (IJMR) | ISSN (Online): 2455 -3662 | SJIF Impact Factor : 3.967 punishments for their wrongdoings. Ahalya is passion, blinded by love for a woman Sita, and turned into a stone, while Indra is cursed to bear a ultimately destroyed by that passion. Vimalasuri mark of his wrong-doing. These motifs are not portrays Ravana as a tragic figure soliciting there in Valmiki‟s Ramayana;these are the sympathy, pity and admiration from the readers. In inclusions of Kampan. According to Ramanujan – another version of Jain Ramakatha, Sita has been Kampan, here and elsewhere, not only portrayed as the daughter of Ravana. makes full use of his predecessor Ramanujan focuses his attention on the Valmiki‟s materials but folds in many oral tradition of the Ramayana when he moves to regional folk traditions. It is often through the critical analysis of “South Indian Folk him that they then become part of other Ramayanas”. In the context of the “South Indian Ramayanas. Folk Ramayanas”, Ramanujan observes that the Besides this, in Kamba Iramavataram, the actual story of Ramayana appears in bits and story of Ahalya and her deliverance and liberation pieces, not in complete form in various different from her curse by Rama, has been more South Indian Ramakathas. Ramanujan gives us dramatically presented with great vividness. anoverview of the south Indian folk Ramayanas, by Kampan has shown Rama as a „Tamil hero‟, a God elaborating a Kannada folk tale. In that particular of fertility who destroys all foes, an epitome of Kannada tale, sung and narrated by an untouchable grace, as per the Tamil alvar traditions. While in bard, details Sita‟s birth from Ravana‟s nostril. In Valmiki‟s Ramayana, Rama appears as a god-man Kannada, the word “Sita” means “he sneezed”, and with his limited powers, in Kampan‟s poem, Rama that‟s why Ravana named his child Sita as she took is a God, who is out with the mission of destroying birth from his sneezing. Thus the name “Sita” was all forms of evil – given a “Kannada folk etymology”, while in the Kampan, writing in the twelfth century, Valmiki‟s Ramayana, the name carries a Sanskrit composed his poem under the influence of etymology. The untouchable bard‟s tale is divided Tamil bhakti. He had for his master into a number of separate narrative poems dealing Nammalvar (ninth century?), the most with separate themes, like – Sita‟s birth, Sita‟s eminent of the Sri Vaisnava saints. marriage with Rama, Sita‟s virginity test, her exile, Thus, although the two 89elling are almost the Lava and Kusa‟s birth, Sita‟s descent so on and so same in narrating the story of Ahalya, there exist forth. In this Kannada folk tale, Ramanujan differences in terms of weaving of the tale, its observes that the actual story of Valmiki‟s texture, its dramatic representation, its vividness Ramayana has received a new texture and not only etc. As Ramanujan states – that, the story has been narrated from a different Part of the aesthetic pleasure in the later perspective, giving emphasis on Sita‟s birth, her poet‟s telling derives from its artistic use marriage, her abduction, her virginity, her exile and of its predecessor‟s work, from ringing finally her descent into the Mother Earth. Besides changes on it. To some extent all later the texture, new themes got incorporated in these Ramayanas play on the knowledge of South-Indian folk tales of Ramayana. previous 89 elling: they are meta- Outside India, there exists a number of Ramayanas. 89elling of Ramayana, too. In countries like – In the context of the “Jain Tellings”, Tibet, Laos, Cambodia,Thailand, Burma,Java, Ramanujan shows how the stories of Hindu Malaysiaand Indonesia, there exist a number of mythology got moulded in Jain Texts to suit their different 89 elling of Ramayana. Here too, own taste. In Jain Ramayana, King Srenika, with a Ramanujan focus his attention on one particular number of questions regarding Ravana and the telling – Thai Ramakirti. The people and writers of other characters of Ramayana, goes to sage Thailand have tried to reframe and rework the Gautama, who can answer his questions regarding actual story of Valmiki‟s Ramayana in a number of the true story of Ramayana and clear his doubts. different forms, since the legendary story of Rama Sage Gautama tells King Srenika that “I‟ll tell you has influenced them greatly (Desai 1980, 63). One what Jain wise men say. Ravana is not a demon, he such example of their effort is – Thai Ramakirti, is not a cannibal and a flesh eater. Wrong-thinking also known as Ramakien. The Thai version or poetasters and fools tell these lies.” And here “telling” of Ramayana “opens with an account of begins the Jain version of Ramayana. The „Jain the origins of the three kinds of characters in the Ramayana of Vimalasuri‟ depicted Ravana as story, the human, the demonic, and the simian”.The „salaka-purusa‟, as a great being. According to story of Ramayana has been represented as a Ramanujan, the Jain Ramayana “proceeds to mythical fairy tale in the Thai telling, depicting a correct its errors and Hindu extravagances” as story of the struggle between humans and demons. presented in Valmiki‟s Ramayana.Vimalasuri, a In Thai Ramakirti,the actual story of Valmiki‟s Jain Ramakatha tradition depicts Ravana as “one of Ramayana has been narrated with a few the sixty-three leaders or salakapurusas of the Jain differences. In Thai Ramakirti, Rama has been tradition”, establishes him as a noble and learned presented as an incarnation of Shiva. The Thai man and “a devotee of Jain masters”, misled by a Ramakirti is not a religious text, and, therefore,
www.eprajournals.com Volume: 3 | Issue: 7 | July 2017 89 EPRA International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research (IJMR) | ISSN (Online): 2455 -3662 | SJIF Impact Factor : 3.967 much stress and emphasis has been given upon protests may “have been part of the general climate Rama‟s war with Ravana, their weapons and of intolerance and the battle over who had the right techniques etc., not on the moral teachings of the to tell the country‟s history and its myths that was epic. Furthermore, Ravana has been depicted as a part of the Indian landscape between the 1980s and person of great knowledge and resourcefulness. the 2000s”.Amardeep Singh, a professor at Lehigh Ravana‟s abduction and his passionate love for Sita University, USA, considers the essay, “essential have been presented as epitome of passionate love reading for anyone who wants to know about the and great courage. Thai Ramakirtiis influenced by complex textual history of the the Tamil 90 elling of Ramayana, Kamba Ramayana”.Chandrashekhar Kambar, renowned Iramavataram – Kannada writer said that “The Ramayana and the It has been convincingly shown that the Mahabharata are texts which have been re-created eighteenth-century Thai Ramakien owes many times over by several cultures in India and much to the Tamil epic. For instance, the outside. Intolerance shown towards a scholarly names of many characters of the Thai study of these versions should be condemned by work are not Sanskrit names, but clearly the entire academic fraternity.” Tamil names (for example, Ṛśyaśṛṅga in CONCLUSION Sanskrit but Kalaikkōtu in Tamil, the In this paper, I have tried to show how latter borrowed in Thai). Ramanujan, through an analysis of the different By critically analysing the five 90elling of 90elling of Ramayana, has elaborated his own Ramayana, Ramanujan has tried to show a pattern theory and concept of translation and has made of difference that exists in these texts. Besides, he some significant commentary on the nature of has also shown us that in translating or transmitting translation and has given us some unique and the Ramayana, writers have quite often depended significant ideas of translation.Ramanujan has upon other versions or 90elling of the epic, rather showed us, in this essay, that each and every than on the original Sanskrit text – translation of a text contains three important Vālmīki‟s Hindu and Vimalasuri‟s Jain necessary elements, and that there is no such thing texts in India – or the Thai Ramakirti in as original Ur-text, nor versions or variations of the Southeast Asia – are symbolic translations original text – of each other. Rāmāyaṇais not merely a set of individual Ramanujan, by critically analysis the five texts, but a genre with a variety of 90elling of Ramayana, asserts that each and every instances. translation or transmission of the Ramayana, In the concluding part of the paper, I would like to consists of three elements – iconic, indexical and state that Ramanujan‟s essay is a scholarly essay symbolic. The iconic translation of a text means that has delved deep into the various levels of word-to-word exact translation of the original text. translation and transmission of a singular text, and But the iconic translations are also indexical in the provides us a new perspective on the various sense that, “the translation is in English idiom and 90elling of Ramayana in India and in South-East comes equipped with introductions and explanatory Asia. Ramayana is not just an epic, rather it‟s a footnotes, which inevitably contain twentieth- “genre with a variety of instances”. century attitudes and misprisions.” These NOTES translations are also symbolic in the sense that, 1. Ramanujan, A. K. (1991). Three Hundred “they cannot avoid conveying through this Ramayanas. Five examples and three thoughts on translation modern understandings proper to their translation" in Many Ramayanas-The Diversity of a reading of the text”. Narrative Tradition in South Asia, ed. Paula CONTROVERSY ENCIRCLING Richman (Delhi, 1992). RAMANUJAN’S THREE HUNDRED 2. Hastings, J., Selbie, J. A., & Gray, L. H. (Eds.). RAMAYANAS (1916). Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics: Life Ramanujan‟s essay Three Hundred and death-Mulla (Vol. 8). Burns & Oates. Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on 3. Ramanujan, A. K. (2011). Poems of love and Translationhas created much debate, controversy war: from the eight anthologies and the ten long and clamour recently when Delhi University, a poems of classical Tamil. Columbia University prestigious Indian University decided to drop the Press. text from their History syllabus, in 2011. At that 4. Murthy, U. A. (1978). Samskara: a rite for a dead moment, the essay was accused of demeaning man. Oxford India Collection Paper. Hindu Religion and full of inaccurate facts. The 5.Ibid. essay was called “blasphemous”, and “malicious, capricious, fallacious and offensive to the beliefs of millions of Hindus”. The accusations are completely wrong. A number of critics raised their voice in defence of the essay. Nilanjana S Ray, a Literary critic, rightly stated in this context, that the
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